Catching Up

In my last post, some 16 days ago, I mentioned that I hoped to get on a more regular posting schedule. My intent was to published each and Thursday. Obviously, that didn’t happen and I don’t expect it to happen in the future.

You see, friends, shortly after that I saw my doctor for my regular 6-month check-up. I was shocked out of my Justin boots by his diagnosis. Full-blown diabetes and a low-functioning thyroid. He told me to change my diet and to lose at least 20 pounds in the next three months. Then I might make it without going on a diabetic routine of meds. He did put me on a pill for the low-thyroid functioning problem. I have noticed that for the last three months or more I just did not have much energy. Low-thyroid will do that. So I started this med and it has knocked me for a loop: a headache for several hours each and every day; frequent nausea; inability to sleep from early morning to 11 pm or so (I had loved my afternoon naps); and no decreasing of my fatigue. After two weeks, those three of those four side-effects have faded. I’m still waiting for it to give me more energy.

Anyway, now you know . . . the rest of the story. I have sub-titled this blog as “A Periodic Publication.” And that’s about the best I can do for the foreseeable future. Thanks for your understanding.

A Birthday Bash

We’re having another birthday party for a local celebrity here in Bradenton, Florida. It will happen on Saturday, July 20th. He is a very popular guy and lots of folks come from far and near to take photos of him. That “him” is none other than ol’ Snooty, who was born on July 21, 1948, back when Harry (“Give ‘Em Hell”) Truman was sitting in the White House as President of the U.S.A. He’s not as old as I am, of course, but he is now ancient compared to his peers.

Okay, I’ll tell you . . . the rest of the story. Snooty is a manatee who has lived in a manatee-sized pool in the South Florida Museum for a long, long time. He was born in the Miami Aquarium down south, but packed up his bags and more here at the age of one. The manatees who live wild along Florida’s shores are odd-looking creatures. In the wild, they seldom if ever live beyond their 20’s. Fast-moving boats kill or badly injure many of these gentle giants each year.

Oh, did you know that Bradenton is a city in “Manatee” County? Yep, and the first community was called Manatee but was swallowed up by a faster growing upstart. And our town sits on the south bank of “Manatee” River.” There are lots of those Manatee around, though I have yet to see one in the wild.

Anyway, happy birthday to you Snooty.

UPDATE:

Unbelievably, Snooty the Manatee died one day after his 69th birthday party. That was on Sunday, July 23, 2017. Officials reported that somehow an access panel door to his pool or aquarium had somehow been knocked loose. The huge, gentle creature was able to go underwater and swim into the small enclosure. When he did not have room to turn around and reach air, again, he drowned. It is quite a tragedy for our community. And those who literally grew up seeing and enjoying Snooty a few times each year were especially saddened.

*****

I am certainly sad to learn that Arizona’s Senator John McCain has been diagnosed with a very aggressive kind of brain tumor called glioblastoma. I have great respect for Senator McCain, though I think he should have retired a few years ago. He spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and he was severely tortured — physically and psychologically — by the Communists during that time. In my book he is a true American hero and a fine gentleman. We hope and pray for his recovery.

*****

I see in “Today’s Birthdays” for July 20th that novelist Cormac McCarthy is now 84. His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. You probably know him for his 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men, which was adapted into an award-winning film by Joel and Ethan Coen. The movie starred Tommy Lee Jones and one of the supporting cast was a gent we have met a few times at cowboy events, actor Barry Corbin. In 2006, his novel The Road, won a Pulitzer Prize for Literature. And also in 2006 he finished writing a play, “The Sunset Limited.” That was made into an HBO film starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones (directed by Jones).

In the birthdays for July 29th I see the name of none other thanLeonard Leroy “Buddy” Lee, born on this date in 1933 and celebrating his 84th year on Mother Earth. Okay, you probably know him better by his stage name, “Robert Fuller.” In 1952, barely out of his teens, he moved to Hollywood to try his luck at acting. He also attended actor Richard Boone’s acting school and started to get small parts. In 1959, Fuller wanted to do Westerns and came in 2nd to Michael Landon for the role of “Little Joe” Cartwright of the Bonanza TV show. But he kept auditioning and won a co-starring role of Jess Harper on the TV Western, Laramie. It ran from 1959 to 1963, and Fuller made lots of money and lots of contacts in the movie industry.

Fuller appeared in numerous TV Westerns and movies after that. However, his next really successful and lucrative deal was a non-Western. Actor (remember “Dragnet”) and director Jack Webb pestered him until Fuller accepted a co-starring role in NBC’s “Emergency!,” a modern, fast-paced TV medical drama. He got the role of Dr. Kelly Brackett, Chief of Emergency Medicine at the fictitious Rampart General Hospital. And his co-star was the lovely, talented pop singer and actress Julie London, who was the ex-wife of director Jack Webb. She was Nurse Dixie McCall. That show ran for five years, from 1972 to 1977. Long retired, Robert Fuller lives in north Texas.

This is the latest piece of business equipment (i.e., toy) purchased and painted and decaled by our son, Stan Paregien Jr. Are you ready for this? He also has an honest-to-Batman “batmobile” with a fake jet exhaust, a fully decorated “General Lee” as seen on Dukes of Hazard” TV show, an authentic DeLorean car with all of the “Back to the Future” gizmos inside and out a little VW all decked out as a Disney studio “love bug” with the number 53 on it. Yep. He is actually making a little money along the way by being paid by folks who want him to bring one of ’em to their corporate event, party, TV commercial and/or movie set. Not bad work if you can get it.

Well, folks, it is now 8:10 in the evening and I’ve been at this way too long. I had hoped to include more, but . . . I am plum tuckered out.